Vt. first state to post health care exchange rates

Vermonters who plan to seek health insurance through the federal Affordable Care Act can now begin to make choices about the coverage they want.

On Monday, the state posted the rates that could be charged for small business owners and individuals through the state's health care marketplace for various levels of coverage.

The rates, which are subject to review by regulators, range from about $1,700 a month for platinum coverage for a family to an average of $745 a month for catastrophic care, but those figures don't take into account health care subsidies that would reduce the rates significantly.

The state's marketplace, to be known as Vermont Health Connect, is due to be up and running by Oct. 1 with coverage to start Jan. 1.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

Vermont is poised to become the first state in the country to let people without health insurance see how much they will have to pay to get coverage through the federal Affordable Care Act next year.

On Monday, the state is going to post the proposed rates to be offered through the state's health insurance marketplace for various levels of coverage. They're the rates that would be charged by the two health insurance companies working with the state to provide insurance for small businesses and individuals and families who don't have access to other insurance.

In one sense, the posting of the rates will be purely symbolic, but it's a process that is due to repeated in every state, in one form or another, by the end of the year, said Andy Hyman, a senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, who follows health care changes.

"This crystallizes the reality of health reform because people are now going to be able to see it in a much more tangible way, and that has been a challenge since the day the president signed the legislation" in 2010, said Hyman.

"It had been much more in theory and with each milestone, and this is a big milestone, people will get a more clear glimpse of the reality of it and begin to see the benefits of it," Hyman said. "In some ways, you could say Monday is the first day."

The marketplaces, known as exchanges, are one of the signatures of the health care overhaul. The state's exchange, to be known as Vermont Health Connect, is due to be up and running by Oct. 1. Vermonters who work in places with 50 or fewer employees and individuals and families that don't get employer-sponsored health insurance will be invited to sign up for insurance coverage effective Jan. 1. All the plans will offer basic services such as checkups, emergency care, mental health services and prescriptions.

By the end of the year, people across the country without traditional health insurance will be able to sign up for coverage through state-sponsored exchanges including Vermont's or, in states that choose not to set up their own exchange, through one set up by the federal government.

While states that fought the federal health care overhaul efforts got a lot of attention, Vermont embraced it from the outset and hopes to go further. The state is in the process of setting up what would become the nation's first single payer health care system, due to be implemented in 2017.

The exchange aims to offer easy-to-understand, side-by-side comparisons of each plan's costs and benefits.

The rates offered by Blue Cross Blue Shield and MVP Health will be reviewed by the Department of Financial Regulation before a final approval by the Green Mountain Care Board.